Life Admin & HomeDone with Claude Oct 11, 2026
Let Claude drive a Mac to play chess and make notes
A writer gave Claude computer use control of his Mac to play chess and create notes; simple tasks worked, complex ones failed, and usage quota nearly ran out.
- What They Did
- Ben Patterson turned on computer use in Claude's settings on a Mac mini and granted accessibility and screen recording permissions. He also had to approve each app individually. Claude opened Notes and wrote a note, and it added a lasagna shopping list when asked from his iPhone through Dispatch. He then asked it to play Chess.
- How It Went
- The Notes tasks worked. Claude got stuck trying to move a single chess piece on the 3D board. Those failed attempts used up nearly his whole five-hour Claude Pro allotment in about 30 minutes, so he stopped it.
- Worth Knowing
- Computer use sends screenshots of your whole screen to Claude and burns usage quickly on a Pro plan, so keep sensitive windows closed and stick to simple tasks.
Try it yourself with Claude
Take control of my computer and open [chess app or website]. Play a game against the built-in [easy/medium] computer opponent, then open [notes app] and write a short note summarizing how the game went. Keep to these two simple steps, tell me if something fails instead of retrying endlessly, and stop once the note is saved.